The Off-Broadway premiere of William Mastrosimone's A Stone Carver starring Dan Lauria at Soho Playhouse will close a week earlier than scheduled, the show has announced.

Dan Lauria

Robert Kalfin (Yentl) stages the family drama which began previews July 18 and opened July 27 originally scheduled for a limited engagement through Sept. 3. Darren Lee Cole and Parseghian Planco present the New York debut which will have played 9 previews and 33 regular performances by its run's end.

"Set in a beautifully hand-crafted but run-down home in the 1970s," as show materials explain, A Stone Carver follows the story of looming redevelopment plans of a town to build a new highway off-ramp when "one elderly stone carver refuses to leave the home he built with his own hands." To make matters more difficult, his rising politician son "tries to convince him to move - and move on."

Lauria reprises his turn as patriarch Augustino, created for the Passage Theater Company premiere production at Trenton, New Jersey's Mill Hill Playhouse in May. He is joined in the cast by Jim Iorio as the son and Elizabeth Rossa as his son's fiancée.

Writer Mastrosimone — who just received an Emmy nomination for his television movie "Into the West" — has previously penned The Woolgatherer, Extremities, Nanawatai!, Bang Bang You're Dead, Like Totally Weird, Benedict Arnold, Shivaree, The Undoing, Cat's-Paw, Sunshine, Burning Desire, Tamer of Horses, "T" (pronounced tau), Blinding Light, The Naked Maja, Take Down Break Down and The Afghan Women. Other credits include the screenplay for "With Honors" and the teleplays "Sinatra" and "The Burning Season."

Founder of New York's Chelsea Theater Center, director Kalfin has directed Broadway runs of Truly Blessed, Strider, Happy End and Yentl. He was co producer of the 1974 Harold Prince revival of Candide. The design team for A Stone Carver features Nathan Heverin (set), Josh Bradford (lighting), Gail Cooper-Hecht (costume) and Austin Duggan (sound). B.H. Barry serves as fight director.

Tickets to A Stone Carver at the Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street (between Sixth and Varick), are available by calling (212) 691-1555 or online at www.sohoplayhouse.com.